Separations based analyses are a prominent part of biological research, allowing one to characterize different biological samples, reaction products and the like. Examples of some of the more prevalent separations based analyses include electrophoretic separations of macromolecular species, e.g., proteins and nucleic acids. While conventional technologies have been developed that are able to perform these separations based analyses, and in some cases at reasonably high rates, these systems still suffer from slower than optimal throughput and labor intensive operation. For example, conventional slab gel electrophoresis is a very time consuming and labor intensive process where samples are electrophoretically separated in a flat slab gel, a process that can take from one to several hours. The gel and its included samples must then be stained and destained in order to detect the separated species within the gel. Again, the staining and destaining process can take several hours to complete. Capillary systems have also been developed that are generally automatable but still require long run times in order to achieve suitable separations.
Microfluidic devices have also been applied in separations based analyses, and have yielded substantial advantages in speed and accuracy. Despite these advantages, however, commercially available microfluidic separations systems have not yet achieved the throughput that is generally desired. Accordingly, it would be extremely useful to provide analytical systems and methods that have improved throughput, as well as accuracy and automatability. The present invention meets these and a variety of other needs.